


go together

by krakens



Category: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krakens/pseuds/krakens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cyrus and the Queen are tentatively friends. Will and Alice aren't thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go together

For the first few hours after the Red Queen’s proclamations, she is nothing but unharnessed energy. She practically skips ahead of them as they make their way out of town, clutching the bottle (Will’s bottle, Cyrus reminds himself, not his) to her chest, hair and coattails flapping behind her all red and golden as she goes. Alice’s temper is growing short, Cyrus can see – which is funny, because honestly the Queen reminds him of her to a frightening degree. Not that it would do him any good to tell her that, because Alice is stubborn and holds a grudge like nothing else, but the similarities are there.

“Now, Jafar’s taken up residence in _my_ palace,” the Queen chimes, turn on her heel to face them as she continues backwards down the road. Her broad, brassy accent comes and goes, but the euphoric expression of glee never leaves her face. It’s an odd one to see on her. “It’s a good place to hole up, but he doesn’t know it half as well as I do.”

“You could just wish us inside,” Will suggests, half under his breath. The Queen laughs as she turns around again and Cyrus gets the impression that Will won’t be getting out of this one so quickly.

* * *

By the time Alice decides it’s time to make camp for the night, some of the Queen’s energy has dissipated. She sits gingerly on a relatively moss-free boulder, bottle still cradled in her arms like a swaddled baby. Her head droops and she doesn’t offer to help make camp, but that doesn’t surprise anybody.

Alice and Will are bickering over the best way to roast a rabbit they managed to snare and Cyrus takes the opportunity to visit the Queen in her sequestered corner of the campsite.

“Hello,” he says, and it seems to take her a second to realize he’s talking to her.

She sniffs in response. “What do you want?” she asks, resting the bottle on her lap and playing with her discarded gloves.

“I just wanted to chat,” he says, sitting down next to her on the boulder. She scoots over to make room for him, but otherwise ignores his presence, pulling a sable thread loose from the seam of one of her gloves. Her nails are painted cherry red and there’s not a chip in the polish. “And say thank you,” he adds.

She narrows her eyes. “What’ve you got to thank me for?” she asks.

“Well, telling me about my brothers, for one.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “I didn’t know what I was telling you. And you don’t even know if it’s your brothers at all. You’re not in this one,” she reminds him, tapping her fingernails against the burnished metal of the bottle.

“True,” he says, staring off into the woods for a moment. Not that matters who’s in the bottles; nobody deserves to be at the mercy of somebody like Jafar. That’s what he’ll tell himself, but he’ll still hope. “I could also thank you for sticking around,” he continues.

“I had my reasons for that, too,” she says, smiling. Not the smile she’d been wearing all evening – the Queen’s smile. Wry, thin, empty. A mask. “It wasn’t for you.”

“I’m still grateful,” he says. “And Alice is too.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” she bites.

“No, she is,” Cyrus says. “She’s really rather fond of the Knave,” he adds, gesturing back to the campfire, where Alice and Will are still bickering with comical animation. A small huffy laugh slips past the Queen’s lips before her face settles into a neutral expression.

A moment passes.

“Is that all?” she asks. Her fingers are twined together, resting atop the swell of the bottle. Her eyes are set on Alice and Will at the campfire.

“I suppose so,” Cyrus says, standing, stretching. “It’s good to have you around, your Majesty,” he says, turning to go.

“You can call me Ana,” she says, catching him by surprise. He turns around to look at her again. Her lips are pressed into a thin line, gaze cast low. It’s the expression of someone trying to hope for nothing at all. “If you want,” she adds after a second.

“It’s good to have you around, Ana,” he says again, and she glances up at him with a little unsuppressed spark in her eyes.

* * *

After they’ve eaten their supper, Ana promptly stands and excuses herself, returning to the little boulder she’s banished herself to so she can retire for the night. Nobody stops her from going.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we can get rid of her,” Alice says to him after Ana’s gone to sleep. Will just shakes his head, biting his tongue.

“No, not while she’s Will’s master,” Cyrus says. He’s oversimplifying things, but it’s not too far from the truth, if they want to keep Will around and safe.

“And that’s for the foreseeable future,” Will says. “Unless she gets bored, I suppose, which is always a possibility.”

“Just fantastic,” Alice mutters, snapping a rabbit bone in half to punctuate the sentiment.

“I mean, all things considered, she’s someone you want on your team,” Will says, sounding not at all like someone who’s trying to look on the bright side of things and everything like someone who’s grasping at straws.

“How do you figure?” Alice asks.

“She’s good at getting what she wants, for one.” He’s got a twig that he’s using to draw little patterns in the duff. Cyrus watches as he traces a line over and over again, but can’t discern any meaning from the shapes. “Think about it. What’s she want? Me, apparently. And if you’ll remember, at the start of all this I was rather happily removed from Wonderland. Now I’m back and magically bound to do her bidding.”

“I don’t think that’s _exactly_ what she wants,” Cyrus says. Alice scoffs. She thinks his treatment of the Queen is bleeding-heart at best and borderline traitorous at worse, he can tell. The fact that he doesn’t hate the Queen the way she does is just another little irritation to her happily ever after, but it doesn’t concern him too much: Alice said it herself, everyone deserves happy endings. By the end of this all, he knows she’ll include their new companion in that.

“You don’t know her like I do,” Will says.

“Familiarity can blind us, sometimes,” Cyrus says, and a flush rises to Will’s cheeks – though whether it’s out of anger or embarrassment Cyrus can’t quite tell.

“Either way,” Alice says rather loudly. Cyrus wonders if Ana’s asleep at all. He glances in her direction – her breathing’s jagged, her body far from still. If she were faking sleep, he thinks she’d probably try to be still. She might be having nightmares. He wouldn’t blame her. “I don’t think any of us _trusts_ her.”

“No, but she might surprise us,” Cyrus says. Will shakes his head and bites his tongue, but Alice just fixes him with a curious look, her wide eyes searching his expression. He smiles at her. “If she’ll be sticking around, we might as well hope,” he reasons.

Alice shrugs, tossing her rabbit bones to the ground with a nonverbal finality only she is capable of mustering.

* * *

The next day, once they’re back on the road, Ana sidles up to the three of them after lagging behind for most of the way. She clears her throat, not at all surreptitious. When Will notices she’s there he pushes forward, putting distance between them, but Alice hangs back.

“So,” Ana says after a moment. “I was thinking.”

Alice, bless her soul, manages not to say anything snide.

“Oh?” Cyrus prompts.

“And I wanted to thank you,” Ana continues, “for rescuing me from those villagers.” Cyrus nods in response, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Our pleasure,” he says, nudging Alice with his elbow. She tosses him a sidelong glance that says _don’t involve me in this_.

“You too, Alice,” Ana adds after a moment’s thought. There’s a beat. Another beat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Alice says, only a little bit brusque, and then pushes forward to join Will fifty paces ahead.

 It’s not much, Cyrus thinks, but it’s a beginning.


End file.
